How to Control Broadband Usage | Learn to Live with FUP

Broadband is described as a channel or a signal that has a wider bandwidth than other internet communication mediums. It is basically a relative term since it is usually in comparison to the other channels around. It has been largely referred to as wide-band. It will therefore put in your possession higher capacity of data transfer rate. You can download a large number of movies, video-chat the whole day, do blogging as much as you want and even do your entire shopping on-line. Itís practically a powerful communication medium. However, itís important to bear in mind that there are limitations set by various Internet Service Providers, and your quota may end while you are still carried away by all the downloading. This is known as FUP (Fair Usage Policy). The excess activity could also slow down the machine or even work your memory up to the limit. These are not desirable features and itís important to control broadband usage. There are workable tips to achieve this.

Plan your data usage while applying for a broadband connection:
As a regular Internet user, it is quite easy to know much data you use per day. For instance, if you are a heavy user, with the heavy downloads, 5 GB could be sufficient per day. If you are into the blogging and social networks, you probably will not require as much. After such planning, it will be practical to set a data limit for yourself and therefore control broadband usage.

Firewalls:
There are hackers out there; people that are brilliant enough to hack through your network security and access your broadband free of charge. To prevent such malicious characters, you should install a firewall. One that will either lock him/her totally out or at least make his manoeuvres a whole lot harder. This will easily lead to a reduction in the monthly bill; and I presume a fatter wallet is desirable to all. You can turn on the Firewall of your Operating System or Anti-virus software to achieve this. The Firewall will also help you to monitor and block/unblock the data transfer activities of the applications installed on your computer.

Avoid sites with high data usage:
There are sites on the Internet that are way up there on the multimedia application. These are sites that eat up data, almost like water on a piece of cushion. These sites involve on-line steaming of TV, video and even the popular on-line gaming. A common example is Youtube which sinks up to 80 MB per hour. Avoiding or at least limiting your access to these sites will help control broadband usage.

Limit the file and CPU sharing software:
You know the way many people like using BitTorrent and LimeWire, etc. These are the p2p software that allow users to share files online. These are really addictive and present a perfect platform for a global village. However, bear in mind that such software also use your processor speed and even at times the memory. This could end up slowing your machine or even lead you to inherit various malware and viruses from other users.

Data compression:
Data compression is a well known method to control broadband usage. There are applications that compress data using effective data-shrinking technology. One such download is Onavo. It is an application that basically runs on iOS and compresses data that is downloaded. This proves very helpful to reducing the data costs by ensuring that a lesser bandwidth is consumed. An android version of Onavo also exists. For Windows, there are free utilities available to compress the files. For example: Winzip, WinRar and 7 Zip.

Monitor your shared network:
If your broadband is shared by neighbours, friends and family via Wi-Fi or wired, it is important to monitor their Internet habits. This will ensure that you keep your data history in check, and be able to nib any extravagance in the bud. This will ensure that you control broadband usage and cut down on those nagging data costs. Needless to say, you should always protect your Wi-Fi network with at least WPA security.

While this article covers the usage aspect of controlling bandwidth, it doesn't go into any of the IT controls that are available.

Several router manufacturers have firmware features that allow traffic to be limited by device on the network, as well as by application. This can help prevent bandwidth use. QoS settings can be used to limit bandwidth as well as provide it to applications.

Another feature is bandwidth capping--it simply shuts off the connection completely after a certain point. This is great for kids. You can even set the cap on a schedule. If no one is in the office after 7pm, why leave the Internet on? If the kids should be in bed by 7pm, their devices can be limited to zero bandwidth after 6:30pm.

You can also use services like opendns to have a custom dns to help curb usage. But beware! This method is very easily fooled and may not even work well as most devices cache dns entries.

Is it safe to use third party applications to check broadband usage. I have always stayed away from these kind of applications firstly because of security and secondly because of them being accurate.

It depends. If it is something built into a router, I would say it's 100% safe. Those applications that sit on your computer, depending on their development nature, could be problematic.

One of the best way to know if a program or application has the potential to be malicious or not is to check for portability. Portable applications are designed NOT to interfere with the operating system or 'hook in' like most programs (and malicious programs) do.

The side benefit of this is that you are no longer dependent on the computer for your data as you can use external storage and work on any computer you wish. This also makes it easier to identify if data usage is coming from you or the computer as you can just turn the computer off and work on another one.

I personally think that the best way to keep a check on your data is by checking it yourself, that way you know that the information is correct and you know in whatever time you need to do with whatever data you have left.